(Brussels) “The longing for freedom was stronger than the wall”: this has been pointed out by the President of Germany, Wolfgang Schäuble, speaking at the solemn session of the European Parliament that commemorates the fall of the Berlin Wall. “Eastern Europe got rid of the communist regime. The nations”, subjected until then to the Soviet regime, “found freedom and independence again and, with them, they found democracy, the rule of law, fundamental rights, a market economy”. It was an “unprepared” process, the German President states in Parliament, somehow “unexpected” but one that, “however, reunited 500 million European citizens”. “We still have to pay tribute to the courage of many people who started a peaceful revolution”. Schäuble mentions the intellectual movements such as Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, the Solidarnosc trade union in Poland, “the election of the Polish Pope, John Paul II”, “the many civilian movements in the countries” of the Warsaw Pact, “the human chain in the Baltics”, the “brave opening of the Hungarian borders …”. He lingers on the “courage of the few”, which then spurred “people’s rallies” until 9th November 1989, when “people crossed the wall in Berlin, hugged each other, found their beloved ones again”. The German president also recalls the over 100 victims, the women and men killed while they tried to climb across the wall and all those who lost their lives and their freedom to the communist regimes of the East.